


Narcoleptic Clairvoyance

by DirkGentlyDG (Furygun81)



Category: Dirk Gently (TV)
Genre: Canon Backstory, College, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1153984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Furygun81/pseuds/DirkGentlyDG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirk Gently, the holistic detective, began his cunning, sly, but mostly tangential career here - at St. Cedd's College, 19 years ago, in 1994.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Narcoleptic Clairvoyance

**19 YEARS AGO...**  
  
  
St Cedd’s College, part of Cambridge University, was a largely ordinary college for the time. The college was so ordinary, people could have walked right past without even knowing of the wonders that lay within its walls. Those walls were pretty good at blending in, however. They were that drab and dreary shade of light brown that stained easily, creating a kind of camouflage that nothing could really hide in, but in Cambridge it fitted in perfectly. Due to its location, it wasn’t exactly the easiest place to get to. In order to gain access, one first had to circumnavigate the one-way system of Cambridge’s roads. Once you got in, the possibility of getting out in less than hour was very little. But nevertheless, the determined heroes that were the citizens of England battled their way through the labyrinth of graffitied road signs, roads littered with potholes and bricks being hurled to and fro across the street by the youth.  
  
The students were nothing short of ordinary. Or at least, that was the way it seemed. That’s one of the delights of the older Cambridge colleges – everyone is so discreet. If they went around mentioning what was odd about each other, they’d be there till Christmas. Everyone just melded in with one another, the ordinary masking the extraordinary and thus appearing as just a normal, ordinary Cambridge college.   
  
In a corner of the courtyard stood a group of seven or eight students, crowded around one particular figure. The figure was that of Svlad Cjelli, popularly known as Dirk Cjelli. Though, then again, ‘popular’ was hardly right. He wasn’t popular in the sense of the word ‘popular’. Infamous was more like it. Svlad Cjelli, infamously known as Dirk Cjelli.  
  
There he stood, hands firmly behind his back, the sternest of looks upon his face as he stared at the students around him who were throwing question after question at him.  
  
The questions concerned certain rumours that Dirk was a psychic. These first arose after Dirk had began expressly denying said rumours that he was a psychic, which apparently came from his mother’s side of the family. The only way that the rumours became popular among the students was because of Dirk’s vigorous rebuttal of them.  
  
The rumours supposedly started during one night about two months ago. Dirk’s roommate, Steve Mander – whom Dirk had probably selected for his unique brand of gullibility – found himself unable to sleep. He had just started to drift off when Dirk started to mumble things in his sleep. Steve dismissed them as nothing until he heard Dirk utter the word, “Discuss,” into his pillow. Steve quickly realised that this was how a large number of exam questions ended, and began to write down Dirk’s predictions.  
  
Dirk had labelled himself as suffering from a condition known as narcoleptic clairvoyance through the use of the sentence, “I do not suffer from narcoleptic clairvoyance.” Steve began telling his friends about Dirk’s predictions and the story, sure enough, spread like a fire in a newspaper factory.  
  
“I couldn’t possibly,” Dirk said to a student just in front of him, his tie flapping in the breeze, hair mimicking its movements.   
  
“Oh, come on!” pressed the student. “Just a quick glance! I promise I won’t tell anyone!”  
  
The object of the student’s desires was that of a piece of paper upon which Dirk had written the supposed answers to the next exams. Recently, Dirk had finally given in and decided to predict the exam answers – under complete hypnosis of course – and seal them in an envelope to open after the exams had run their course. He continually stated that he was only doing this so he could disprove any and all theories which suggested that he had psychic abilities of any kind.   
  
“I’ll pay.”  
  
Dirk rolled his eyes and began to refuse, “I’m sorry, but it would just be immoral,” he stated once more, letting his gaze fall to the floor.  
  
The large majority of the students’ gazes fell with it, although Dirk quickly lifted his again and spoke once more, “Although, my mother is undergoing a very serious operation...” The story which Dirk began to tell ran along the lines of his mother requiring serious medical attention in order to save her life, and that’s she’s only managing to cling on just for the moment. Dirk also said that this operation would cost quite a lot of money, and he would be most grateful if anybody could come forward and ‘donate’ to his cause. He then suggested, as an aside, that all donors would be able to have a quick peek at his predictions for the exams.  
  
Naturally, the large majority of the students started thrusting their money towards him, and he accepted it gratefully.   
  
  
  
 **ALSO 19 YEARS AGO...**  
  
Results day.  
  
A large majority of the school had wined and dined and – most importantly - donated to Dirk Cjelli in order for a glance at his predictions for the exam.   
  
The large majority of them turned out to be wrong.   
  
The students also promptly found out that Dirk’s mother was perfectly fine. Or she most probably was as Dirk hadn’t contacted his mother in six years.  
  
This caused a great amount of students to become a great amount of angry.  
  
Dirk rushed to his ten-year-old Austin Leyland Princess – pursued by some very malicious and malevolent students who were filled with the fury of having lost £100 or more to this man – and drove out of St Cedd’s as fast as possible, getting at once sucked into the one-way system which looped around Cambridge like a coiled viper.   
  
However, it is worth mentioning that one of these exam papers had been predicted correctly by Dirk. Applied quantum physics. The subject of applied quantum physics ran along the lines of everything being fundamentally interconnected and that every particle affects, no matter how faintly and obliquely, every other particle. His predictions were exactly the same as the one set. Word for word. To the comma. When questioned about it nowadays his response was always a hasty, “Just a coincidence,” which was usually followed up by a quick changing of the subject. St Cedd’s, however, seemed to think that Dirk had obtained the answers to the exam via illegal methods. They promptly proposed the motion for Dirk’s expulsion from the college, which was promptly put into effect which saw Dirk’s prompt disappearance from the students’ lives.   
  
  
The large majority of them never heard of that curly-haired, tweed-wearing conman again.


End file.
